West Virginia Executive Spring/Summer 2020 | Page 98

������������� Jeff Barnes President & CEO, Barnes Agency MAGGIE HATFIELD Photo by Josh Hanna. JEFF BARNES, president and CEO of the Barnes Agency, credits his career success to integrity, honesty and respect. “I have tried to navigate my professional career by doing the rights things for the right reasons even when nobody is looking,” he says. It was under his father’s guidance that Barnes was first led down the health care career path. As a hospital financial services executive, he thought his son would excel in health care administration. Barnes began his professional career as an administrator in training at a large nursing home, but he was drawn to the world of advertising. He was able to blend his two passions when, after years of research, he saw a need in the region for an advertising agency that specialized in health care marketing and public relations. In 2003, he founded the Barnes Agency. However, he quickly found out that starting an advertising agency was not an easy venture. “In the early years, it was difficult to make a new agency work,” he says. “We were in the shadows of much larger, more 96 WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE